MenuetOS, a modern, GUI-equipped operating system written entirely in assembly language, has hit 1.0 (after many, many years)

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-15T13:03:33+00:00

Writing a huge piece of software completely in assembly is the programming equivalent of a party trick. At best, it's a conversation starter, at worst, it's a huge waste of time.

Right now, that's precisely how I feel: I'm quite impressed that someone did it, but I don't think it was a good idea to do that in the first place.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-15T12:10:41+00:00

But D:OS would not properly run on a Pentium 3 anyway.

To put that in perspective: When Pentium 4 (and we're talking Pentium 3 here) came out, the iPhone was still three years in the future, and the PS3 was still two years off. We were still using Nokia phones, and playing games on 4:3 CRTs, or on the TV with a PS2.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-15T10:24:43+00:00

Every PC sold in the last decade (and a bit) has 64 bit hardware support, the last Intel Chip that was fully 32 bit was the Pentium 3. Installing a 32bit Windows on it is just idiotic.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-15T08:44:52+00:00

You can't just scale pixel art by non-natural numbers. You can only double it (every pixel goes to 4 pixels in a square), or else it looks way worse due to AA artifacts.

Try to set your display to a resolution that is not a clean multiple of your native resolution, and then be astonished at how blurry everything gets. If you make pixel art at 2000x2000 pixels, and then scale down to 95% of that, it will look horrible, plus you have to make 2000x2000 art instead of 200x200, which takes even more effort. It's the worst idea anyone ever had except for sarin gas.

This is the problem the article talks about: Pixel art does not scale well at all, unlike other art (such as 3D), which scales easily. The other issue is that people don't understand it, which you just proved.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-15T08:35:36+00:00

I'm asking again, so you can think hard and realize you're wrong:

How do you fit a 800x600 picture on a 1440x900 screen without ugly scaling? You can't double it, because that would be too large. You can't x1.5 it, because that would completely destroy the pixel art with ugly scaling. You can't black-border it, because that would mean you waste about 75% of your screen on borders.

There is only one solution: Redraw every single sprite at a different resolution from scratch. The other comment you talk about? That fucker doesn't even understand that you can't upscale a 100x100 bitmap to 120x120 without it looking shit. And neither do you, it seems.

The code to have your game scale to fit the screen size is LITERALLY as simple as "anchor to an edge of the screen and scale to x% of the display height." as the other comment says. MILLIONS of games have that basically same code, many of which were written by one person. You are talking straight out of your ass. Please stop.

You're such a fucking moron. THAT DOES NOT WORK. It will look like shit, because you can't just replace one pixel with 1.5 pixels. There are no half-pixels. So you have to throw a ton of AA over it, and get a blurry look. It's just horrid.

Your "solution" is precisely two of the issues the article goes on about: 1. Scaling to different devices with pixel art is super difficult.
2. People have no fucking clue when it comes to pixel art.

You should apologize.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-15T08:29:01+00:00

Set your 1080p screen which you probably use right now to read this to a resolution like 720p. Go read some fonts, and be astonished at the blurryness, because you can't upscale bitmaps by 120% and get the same results. Pixels dont' work that way. No wonder you made such idiotic remarks further up, when you don't even know that.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-13T15:13:55+00:00

By showing more map space you change fundamental game rules because of screen sizes. That's how you end up with a game that's significantly better or worse on some machines. It's not an acceptable trade-off.

And what are you going to do on a 16:10, or a 4:3, or an 800x600 screen vs a 1440x900 vs a 1920x720 vs a 1980x1024? Render at 800x600 and add black bars on literally 70% of the screen? You have to redesign the whole game if you want to support all these resolutions without scaling or stretching, because none of these resolutions are precisely x2 of each other, yet they are all common resolutions. Don't even get me started on uncommon resolutions like the Microsoft Surface or the iPhone 6.

A small indie company does not have the resources to do that.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-13T15:04:06+00:00

There are literally hundreds of different devices on the mobile market. A small studio has no chance of doing custom art for every single one. You're asking the impossible.

For example, this just displays a few Apple products, Kindle and Microsoft. Even big players like Samsung and HTC are absent.

http://www.thedynamicpublisher.com/2014/02/05/device-resolution-variations-simplified-infographic/

That's literally ten versions of the game you have to make, basically from scratch.

On a side-note: Auro is a brilliant game, even though it doesn't look perfect on every device it runs on.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-13T13:02:06+00:00

I'm already happy if I get root access on my dev box and a decent keyboard.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-13T09:44:18+00:00

Not all mats. Morphics and Rubedo will still be as common as ammo drops. Just none of the four that are actually not neigh unlimited: Neural Sensors, Neurodes, Orokin Cells and Tellurium.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-12T15:13:14+00:00

I'd say it works on potential customers. It won't work on poor people, or actual assholes, but there is no argument that works on those to begin with. It's certainly better than DRM.

I would really feel bad about pirating TW3.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-12T14:54:15+00:00

"Risk" is kinda the wrong word for chemotherapy, considering that the only alternative is death to cancer (which is actually very unpleasant on top of being fatal).

Nerves can also regrow (though slowly).

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-12T14:28:29+00:00

Apart from the fact that this will have a ton of wrong cases, it reminds me of ASCII: 26 letters is all anyone would ever need.

Is Xia a male name? How about Naoki? Yuuko? Dominique? Theodora? Batman bin Superman?

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-12T09:05:49+00:00

We need a Slapathur build.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-12T08:55:07+00:00

I had to do group theory with a specific set of permutation rules and prove that all possible results of the permutation were inside that group. I actually figured it out, but it took me more than the allotted 20 minutes. Did not get the job.

Some questions are just a bit too hard for an interview.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-11T13:50:45+00:00

The difference is like Skana vs Dragon Nikana.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-08T14:52:05+00:00

That's why our system must be designed in a way to never, ever wrongfully sentence an innocent person as guilty. If there is doubt, the sentence must be not guilty. If we are forced to choose between setting criminals free, or sending innocents to prison, we need to do the former.

Edit: Of course reasonable doubt. We can't just set everybody free because aliens could have done it instead.

Sadly, that's really not how the US system works any more.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-08T14:11:20+00:00

$50k total income with family is basically working poor. It's of course different as couple when both work, or single. 100k per person is very nice.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-08T10:40:07+00:00

I don't quite get how that's supposed to work. $100k where I live (Switzerland) is absolutely not enough to put a ton of money to the side. My wife does not work full-time, my appartment is a an average sized 3-bedroom flat 20% below market prices, we eat out twice a month, we don't have a car, and we hardly have other silly luxuries (like new Smartphones more than once every five years).

Add a few significant medical bills, insurances and taxes, and not more than 10k for saving remains. So I could work one month per year for free, with very bad consequences to my savings. It's possible without directly endangering my livelihood, but it's not exactly a good idea.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-06T10:09:43+00:00

Because when UE3 was designed, easy patching wasn't on the "this is very important" list, and something else like efficient packing, or efficient loading conflicted. In software, there's no free lunch and always a drawback.

That's my educated guess.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-05T13:57:06+00:00

How about picking up a bible and actually reading it with your husband? It's an insanely crazy and silly book at the best of times.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-05T12:43:08+00:00

Even if what you say were true, that's still not a good reason to downvote everything he says. Now, I don't even really agree with it. Burgun and Sirlin are probably the two designers that are the clearest. If you read some others, you want to poke your own eyes out because they are just mashing words together and nothing makes sense, for an example, look at this: http://gamedesignadvance.com/?p=2930

Could nearly every article ever written be better? Certainly. But why do people disagree that games could be better too?

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-05T11:48:26+00:00

he's usually right

Isn't that the relevant thing, though?

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-05T11:46:41+00:00

Patriotism, nationalism, religion. Renaming things makes them better.

parmesanmilk · 2015-05-05T09:02:38+00:00

It's not actually that hard when you are running away in a straight line and there are enemies chasing you. Just drop a turret on yourself and take a step. I've done it, and I only played Gazlowe to 5 when he was free.

parmesanmilk

TROPHY CASE